Chapter 30
INLAND OPINION Whatever may be said, it does seem hard, from a wholly disinterested point of view, that so many mighty men, with swift ships, armed with villainous saltpetre and sharp steel, should have set their keen faces all together and at once to nip, defeat, and destroy as with a blow, liberal and well-conceived proceedings, which they had long regarded with a larger mind. Every one who had been led to embark soundly and kindly in this branch of trade felt it as an outrage and a special instance of his own peculiar bad luck that suddenly the officers should become so active. For long success had encouraged enterprise; men who had made a noble profit nobly yearned to treble it; and commerce, having shaken off her shackles, flapped her wings and began to crow; so at least she had been
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